Reflections on Philosophy, Science and Society
What separates science from pseudoscience? In this post, Carlo Martini takes a fresh look at the familiar but largely forgotten problem of demarcation. He argues that demarcation is still a relevant problem, as scientific misinformation continues to plague public debates on topics such as global warming, vaccines, and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under what circumstances can we correctly attribute knowledge to an institution? The question is interesting not only because it can assist us in attributing responsibility, but also because it can illuminate what information structures and lines of communication should look like in institutions. This post by Säde Hormio is based on her forthcoming article “Institutional knowledge and its normative implications”.
Péter Cserne and Magdalena Małecka tell us how their book Law and Economics as Interdisciplinary Practice came to be and give an overview on what kind of issues the book tackles. They discuss the position of Law and Economics at a time when questions are raised about the identity and possible further developments of the research project.
On November 25th 2019, TINT will organize a seminar, The Economics & Philosophy of Plumbing, on the 2019 Nobel prize in economics.
Continue reading “Seminar on the 2019 Economics Nobel Prize”
There are many excellent handbooks on the philosophy of the social sciences out there. So who needs another one? Perhaps no one, at least not now. In this post, Michiru Nagatsu and Attilia Ruzzene explain why they prepared another handbook, Contemporary Philosophy and Social Science: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, and why this is different.
Continue reading “Yet another handbook on the philosophy of social sciences?”
Written by Uskali Mäki
The story of Finnish philosophy of science is often told in terms of sequential generations, expanding from individuals to groups. There was Eino Kaila, logical empiricist, followed by Georg Henrik von Wright and his student Jaakko Hintikka, followed by the latter’s students such as Ilkka Niiniluoto, Raimo Tuomela, and Risto Hilpinen. The generic style of research has been markedly analytic, but the modes of analysis have not been uniform, and the themes addressed have evolved in the course of the past decades. (For a story of Finnish philosophy of science, see e.g. Niiniluoto EPSA Newsletter 2013.)
Among other lines of inquiry, philosophy of the social sciences, broadly conceived, has recently become a major field of group activity, especially at the University of Helsinki. In addition to his many other contributions, G.H. von Wright’s Explanation and Understanding (1971), an exercise in analytic hermeneutics, was an important contribution in its time, even though its major idea – drawing the contrast between natural and social sciences in terms of causal explanation vs practical reasoning — is now largely abandoned, and it has not given rise to an enduring tradition. Raimo Tuomela, professor of philosophy and methodology of social sciences since 1971, has had a long career in developing accounts of collective intentionality and social ontology more generally, becoming one of the leading experts in this area. Tuomela served as an Academy Professor in 1995-2000, which involved resources for him to put together a research group and thereby to coordinate more extensive collective activity on collective action. This has created a notable tradition in the field. Continue reading “TINT in context”
Welcome to the TINT blog!
This blog is for all things philosophy of (social) science. We’ll post updates about our weekly Perspectives on Science -seminar, as well as texts by our researchers (and maybe some others, too). The blog is under construction and will launch soon. Stay tuned!
University of Helsinki